


Mended

by SegaBarrett



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character expects to be punished and is comforted instead, Character is rescued and comforted, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28185327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: It wasn't what Severus had expected.
Relationships: Severus Snape/Voldemort
Comments: 4
Kudos: 89
Collections: Writing Rainbow Silver





	Mended

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yen/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and I make no money from this.

There had never been a place in which Severus Snape had felt at home in his life. His childhood had been loud and chaotic and, at best, there had just not been enough time for him.

He chose not to think about the worst.

Now that he was in the Death Eaters, however, he had begun to feel little stirrings of power whenever he heard Voldemort speak about it. His voice seemed to cause Snape to want to rise up from his seat and jolt off to do whatever his new master asked.

There seemed to not be enough hours in the day, not enough hours to devote every single one of them to the Dark Lord and his majestic plans.

Sure, sometimes he heard the chiding voice of Lily in his brain, telling him that he had changed and become someone that she didn’t know anymore.

And he had felt oh so glad of it. 

***

Snape had botched the first mission he had been sent on, botched it so badly that he had slipped right into a trap set by the Ministry of Magic, complete with a hoard of dementors. 

“We’re going to need to know everything you can tell us about Voldemort,” the man said. He hadn’t introduced himself – just another suit, Snape knew, another man who wanted to climb up the ladder until he would be Minister of Magic one day. “We need to know who he’s working with and what he’s planning.”

Snape laughed at him in response. He had the fearlessness of youth, after all.

A few hours in, and he wasn’t so fearless anymore, but that was the price to pay to be one of the Dark Lord’s most trusted men. No matter what they did to him, his tongue would remain tight against the roof of his mouth, lapping at the blood that had begun to fill his mouth. 

By the time they came in to get him, he was bleeding from his nose and his ears, too. His head was ringing and he could barely keep himself awake.

It was beautiful, so much beautiful red and black. He could appreciate that.

***

The Dark Lord would not be pleased. He had warned Snape not to get caught, had been warning him ever since he had been recruited back when he was fifteen. Now he was eighteen and tall, gangly as always but more at home in his body, more confident and capable than ever before.

Too confident and capable to have an excuse for being caught. If he had been a little quicker on the draw, if he had heard the creak of the floor behind him rather than murmuring the incantation, then it never would have happened.

He was going to pay for this.

There were butterflies in his stomach that were a curious mix of anticipation and terror. To be at the mercy of the supreme power of Lord Voldemort was enough to make anyone try to turn and run. 

But not Severus Snape.

Whatever the Dark Lord decided, he would abide by it. He had seen the carnage left behind, and it made him know better than to try and get away. So many people only wanted to bask in Voldemort’s glory until his all-seeing eye turned on them.

But not Snape. Never Snape. 

He had always abided, after all.

***

“Severus.” The voice was curling through the air like smoke, trickling over Snape’s spine in a way that made him want to wiggle his toes and shake his shoulders to relieve the tension, but he stood perfectly still.

“Yes, Dark Lord,” Snape replied quickly. Voldemort seemed to be looming as he entered the room. Snape had never pictured, back when he realized he could do magic, that he would ever be in the presence of someone like this. Someone whose body and mind had formed into just pure… power.

Snape never wondered who Voldemort had been before (except to wonder if he could have ever been someone as abject as Snape had been, and then decided never, never, couldn’t even breathe it in his mind), only clung to who he was now.

“It was quite a blunder today on the mission.” Voldemort didn’t leave any room for debate on that matter, and Snape didn’t try to find any wiggle room. There was no place to wiggle off the hook with Voldemort, and that was part of what made him so… powerful, so… In Snape’s fired up brain, he couldn’t find a word.

Snape braced for the inevitable punishment. Would Voldemort kill him, or would he play with him first? Would he dangle him with the Cruciatus curse?

Snape bowed his head slightly. 

Voldemort leaned down and touched Snape on both of his shoulders. He barely kept from trembling. He would stay upright, no matter what. He would not crumble. He would take the punishment he deserved, whether it be fatal or not. He thought over every mistake he had made and wanted to scratch them out of his memory. 

“You did well,” Voldemort said. “We may not win them all at first. But we will win them all in time. Are you hurt, Severus?”

Snape stared at him, still afraid to move.

“No,” he said.

Voldemort chuckled.

“Don’t lie to me, Severus. You need to remember that you can never hope to lie to me.” He tapped a wand to Snape’s bruised face and whispered a few words, and Snape felt it begin to heal.

Now, he moved. Now, his fingers wiggled and his toes stretched out, and he felt very much a speck on the face of a huge, wide expanse. 

“Come to bed,” Voldemort told him, and of course that was what he did. The bed was warm and the world was wide, and each and every touch of Voldemort’s fingers were cold but smoothing, as he told him again and again of all of the plans he had for him.

He would not let him down again.


End file.
